Clause 118
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this lovely weather, Mr. Amess.
As the hon. Gentleman said, there is genuine agreement that multi-area agreements are a good thing. Once again, however, we return to the question of whether it is necessary to make provision for them in primary legislation. Considerable powers are reserved to the Secretary of State in subsequent clauses on multi-area agreements, and we should question whether that is necessary to enable local authorities to work together to achieve improvements in public services in their areas.
I may refer to this later, but in an interview in yesterday’s Guardian, the new Secretary of State referred to exploring the possibility of new powers, with a legally enforceable charter under which local authorities would have the right to refuse to have the Secretary of State’s views imposed on them. Most of the Bill could fall into the category where local authorities might say, “Actually, we think that this is an imposition of your powers, which is completely unnecessary.” They would then have the opportunity to refuse to implement it.